A Survivor’s View of Kasab’s Death

On the night of Nov. 26, 2008, K.R. Ramamoorthy, the 73-year-old non-executive chairman of ING Vysya Bank, was tied up and held hostage by terrorists for seven hours in his room at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in Mumbai.

It was the most terrifying night of his life, Mr. Ramamoorthy said, and he was certain he would be killed.

On Wednesday, Mr. Ramamoorthy found little solace in the news that the lone surviving terrorist had been executed. That’s because Mohammed Ajmal Kasab was only a small part of a much larger conspiracy, Mr. Ramamoorthy said.

“While it is true that he has taken the lives of many innocents, he was brainwashed by others into feeling it was his duty,” said Mr. Ramamoorthy, in an interview in Mumbai, where he had traveled for a board meeting. “It is the people who indoctrinated him, those who masterminded the attack, who should be brought to justice.”

Mr. Ramamoorthy said he stayed Tuesday night in the very same room at the Taj—number 632, where he was held hostage nearly four years ago. He didn’t request the room, he said, but when the hotel unknowingly put him there, he didn’t object.

Still, at 11 p.m. Tuesday night—the time the gunmen broke into his room back then — he couldn’t stop his thoughts from returning to the night of the attacks, which left more than 160 dead, including the other nine terrorists.

A front page story in The Wall Street Journal at the time relayed play-by-play the events that happened across Mumbai during the attacks, including what happened to Mr. Ramamoorthy.

This is what happened to Mr. him that night, a Wednesday. Mr. Kasab was not among the attackers who went to the Taj.

Taj staff members had been calling room after room, advising hundreds of guests to lock the doors, switch off all the lights, and hide.

At about 11 p.m., Mr. Ramamoorthy heard men in the corridor knock on the door of his room, he says. “Room service,” one of them called out in English.

He kept silent inside.

“Shoe polish,” the same voice called out.

Mr. Ramamoorthy moved to the bathroom, accidentally banging the door. The two gunmen blasted the room door’s lock open and entered. They tied Mr. Ramamoorthy’s hands and feet, he says, using his long Indian top known as a kurta, and his pajama bottoms. Then they ordered him to kneel on the ground. “I’m 69 years old. I have high-blood pressure. Please let me go,” he recalls begging.

“We’ll leave you, we’ll let you go,” one of the men replied, he says. They turned him over so he lay face down on the floor.

Over the next hour or two, the two men spoke on their mobile phones in his room, seeming relaxed and happy, Mr. Ramamoorthy says. He couldn’t tell much of what they said but made out the word “grenade” several times, he says. They ate some snacks from the minibar. Then, two more gunmen showed up in the room, dragging four other hostages — all uniformed hotel staff.

“What are your names and occupations?” the men asked the five hostages.

“I am Ramamoorthy from Bangalore,” Mr. Ramamoorthy says he replied.

“What is your work?” one of the assailants asked in Hindi.

“I am a teacher,” he replied.

“No way can a teacher afford to stay here,” shouted the gunman, he recalls. “You better tell us the truth.”

“I work for a bank,” Mr. Ramamoorthy admitted.

The assailants were distracted by calls on their mobile phones. Minutes later, pushing the five hostages in front of them, the gunmen descended the staircase to a fifth-floor room. They shoved the hostages inside, laid them face down on the floor, and left.

Mr. Ramamoorthy says he managed to free his hands and untied the others. By now, a fire, possibly started by a grenade explosion, was spreading through the sixth floor of the Taj hotel. As the choking smoke from the blazing fire enveloped the room, one of the four hotel staffers ripped off curtains and bedsheets, creating an improvised rope. The staffers used the rope to shimmy down the balcony outside to the third-floor ledge.

Certain he didn’t have the physical strength to follow suit, Mr. Ramamoorthy backtracked and descended via the smoke-filled staircase to the third floor. Sometime later, he noticed the glare of searchlights. He opened the window and waved and shouted. Firefighters saw him and lifted a ladder to the window. “You are safe,” he says they told him. He looked at his watch. It was 6 a.m. Thursday.

Today, nearly four years later, Mr. Ramamoorthy says he has managed to come to terms with the horror of that night and to continue to live his life. “By and large, I could regain my composure,” he said, by reminding himself again and again how lucky he was to be alive.

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